Today on Kresta - November 30, 2010

Talking about the "things that matter most" on Nov. 30

4:00 – The Little Way of Lent: Meditations in the Spirit of St. Therese of Lisieux
While reading the autobiography of St. Thérèse, Fr. Gary Caster had an 'ah ha' moment that transformed his experience of Lent from one of narrow concern over what to give up to one of joyful freedom to enter into the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. "What struck me," he says, "was her insistence on the way we do things for God and not the things we do for him. It wasn't about what I was offering; it was about why." The daily Lenten meditations in this book—all colored by St. Thérèse's Little Way of Spiritual Childhood—will transform you, too, helping you focus not so much on what you have done to offend God, but on what he has done to redeem you. He joins us as we being this Advent season.

4:20 – Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America
The New York Times was once considered the gold standard in American journalism and the most trusted news organization in America, as well as being a great Christian newspaper. Today, it is generally understood to be a vehicle for politically correct ideologies, tattered liberal pieties, and a repeated victim of journalistic scandal and institutional embarrassment. In Gray Lady Down, the hard-hitting follow up to Coloring the News, William McGowan asks who is responsible for squandering the finest legacy in American journalism. Combining original reporting, critical assessment and analysis, McGowan exposes the Times’ obsessions with diversity, “soft” pop cultural news, and countercultural Vietnam-era attitudinizing, and reveals how these trends have set America’s most important news icon at odds with its journalistic mission—and with the values and perspectives of much of mainstream America. He joins us.

5:00 – Direct To My Desk

5:40 – Advent, Ecumenism and the Relics of St. Toribio Romo
We talk to Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron for our monthly segment, today looking at the newly-minted season of Advent. Archbishop Vigneron is also participating in an evening prayer service with Metropolitan Nicholas (Greek Orthodox) this coming Sunday, so we look at the ecumenism happening in Detroit. We also discuss a relic of St. Toribio Romo, a Mexican martyr and unofficial patron of immigrants which has made its way around to local parishes. The Archbishop received the relic into the Archdiocese at the Cathedral Nov. 3 and is now enshrined at Holy Redeemer Parish.

5:50 – Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Nick Thomm joins us from London where earlier this evening London time he attended the World Premiere of Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader and conducted some interviews on the red carped. The press junket will take place Thursday and we will hear those interviews when he returns. Nick joins us with his first impressions.